No quick exit from Congo, UN told

Congo's president, Joseph Kabila, has warned Britain and France that their troops might have to stay longer than planned to quell fighting in his country. His warning came amid reports of another massacre.

Mr Kabila said the UN force, which is expected to be led by France and include British troops, would have to remain beyond September if it was to restore order to Ituri province in the north-east.

Western governments are nervous about sending troops to the area, where UN observers have been killed. They hope that the deployment, expected this week or next will be brief.

Mr Kabila dashed that hope by effectively calling for the UN force to stay indefinitely because fighting would resume the moment it left Ituri.

He said: "As soon as it leaves and the UN goes back to the current mandate, we will continue to have problems everywhere, wherever they are deployed.

"When this force leaves, then those powers that are bent on disturbing the peace will rise up again."

At one time the five-year war in Democratic Republic of Congo, in which 3 million people have died, sucked in six neighbouring countries. But after a series of peace deals they have pulled out.

When the Ugandan army left Ituri last month a struggle for power and wealth between rival militias filled the vacuum.

Reports emerged of a fresh massacre over the weekend in Chomia village, north of the port of Kasenye on Lake Albert in the north-east, with civilians again the main target.

Brigadier Kale Kaihura, who commanded Ugandan troops in Congo until their withdrawal last month, said fighters from the Lendu group armed with machetes and rifles had killed at least 100 members of the Hema community.

Dozens were wounded, some of whom were ferried in canoes across the lake for treatment in Uganda, he said. Many civilians had fled the area in the past month as fighting worsened.

"They were prominent Hema figures, and they thought they would not be killed," said Brig Kaihura.

He said that the UN had been warned that the situation in the area "was volatile".

Bawunde Kisangani, a Hema leader, said the death toll was 253, including about 20 babies.

A militia, the Party for the Unity and Safeguarding of the Integrity of Congo, put the number of dead at 352, and blamed Lendu fighters backed by Congolese government troops.

It also emerged yesterday that Belgium, the former colonial power which plundered Congo's mineral wealth using slave labour, was considering joining the UN mission.

Belgium's recently elected prime minister, Guy Verhofstadt, a Liberal Democrat, said that he would seek the backing of his probable coalition ally, the socialists, to send troops "for a very short period" to help end the violence.

He did not say how many would be sent but stressed that they would go only under a UN or EU mandate.

Belgian troops have not served in Africa since a parliamentary investigation into the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, in which Belgian troops were killed, advised against military involvement in former colonies.

France said it would send some 1,400 troops to the region. Canada and South Africa are also expected to contribute troops.